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>Language

>Pretty soon I’m going to need to buy a program for adults that teaches Spanish and Chinese. I took two years of Spanish in highschool, but don’t really remember much. I can barely count to 20 in Spanish, while the girls get up to the teens with no problem. Sometimes they go up to 20.

They are picking up the Spanish from Dora, and this book we have about the first 1000 words in Spanish.Chinese is coming from Ni Hao Kai-lan. I watch them and listen to them. They are so serious, repeating the words in Chinese and Spanish.

I try to remember what the words mean, but I will admit, it’s hard! I don’t retain information like I used to.You would think Spanish would be easier for me, having two years in highschool, but it’s still hard. I wonder if that’s because I didn’t really want to take the 2nd year, but did it because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. Honestly by the 2nd year I had lost interest, and did not care for taking that class.

The other day Ava comes up to me and she starts bowing, and saying something to me in Chinese. I’m racking my brain trying my best to remember what the words mean, but I’m drawing a blank.Here I thought I would be the one to teach them another language. Looks like that’s going to happen the other way around.

I’m not about to go out and buy every program available, or all of the books off the shelf.I do think I’ll pick up a few at the library soon and we’ll go through them together. They talk about going to China all of the time, so I know the books on Chinese culture will be of interest to them.

Since they are interested in these other cultures what ideas or suggestions do you have that I can strew about our home for them?Maybe I can find some coloring books, puzzles, or something we can make ourselves here at home. Museums or other places of interest we could look up online?

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5 thoughts on “>Language”

>Our local library (Portland, Maine) offers Mango language programs online for free, maybe your library offers something similar. Our family has been very slowly working on the Mandarin Chinese program. My boys are very interested in China also, but I've never heard about Ni Hao Kai-lan, we'll have to check that out!I love the idea of learning a language as a family, that is one of our goals, I hope we get there & can travel somewhere to practice our new language someday. I've heard from so many people that Rosetta Stone is fantastic. Good luck!

>Oh, my! The other day we were watching Ni Hao Kai-Lan for the first time, and afterward I swear Mikko started singing Are You Sleeping in Chinese from hearing it sung through a couple times in the episode. They're sponges, aren't they?!Our library has a lot of story times in various languages. You might check and see. That way, you could connect with other people who speak or who are learning the languages you're interested in, and they might know of other local resources (playgroups, etc.), too.